We often run multiple instances of the same course at different locations across the borough to provide a wide range of options for our adult learners working towards accreditation in ESOL and functional skills qualifications. All the courses start and finish in the same week and have the same content and GLH. Occasionally we need to swap learners between course locations due to their circumstances (e.g. they moved house, or now need creche facilities etc.). How should this kind of transfer be recorded in the ILR? I can see a withdrawal reason option for ‘transferred to another provider’, but I would need ‘transferred to another location to continue the same aim’ to record this accurately. Are there any options that people know about, so I don’t have to record these learners as withdrawn and not achieved at their initial course location?

If they are all on the same contact you shouldn’t need to close or transfer the record.
Depending on the system you use you could change the cohort (internal reference that does not get uploaded)
You would though update the address if the learner moved house

We use LearnerTrack (from Monterpoint), and use physical registers at our courses, so the learners concerned have a paper trail on two different course instances. I realise the course location and tutor are not important for the ILR, but we have to reflect what is happening accurately in our data so we can correctly run internal reports about enrolment targets and QAR on each course instance.

Is there a workaround? It seems unfair that we have to take a hit and record a withdrawal and fail on the initial course, when the learner is just switching to a different venue to continue on the same course/aims.

Bit of an eternal problem this one. An auditor would tell you that if they’re on the same aim with the same start and end dates then it’s not a transfer, but I’ve yet to find a student record system that will let you move a learner from one course object to another without affecting their ILR record.

The least worst option, in my opinion, is just to record them as a transfer as you would if they were moving between two different aims. You’ll need a decent evidence trail so you can show an auditor why you’ve done it, but this will keep your funding and achievement rates in line with what they should be without too complicated a system. A harsh auditor would probably make it a management letter point to sort out a better system, but, in a sense, it’s beyond your control if your software supplier doesn’t offer it (and, as I say, this is not purely limited to LearnerTrack).